Matthew Rich

Matthew Rich-Tolsma is an experienced and internationally respected coach, consultant, and mediator who has worked with senior leaders and their teams from a wide range of geographies and industries. He is a co-founder of PlayScapes. After training as an educator he worked with children and teachers in Africa and Asia, before moving to the Netherlands where - after a brief stint in academia - he turned his attention to working with organisational leaders. During that time he has amassed hundreds of hours of coaching experience with individuals and groups, and served for six years as an Executive Director of a UK based consulting firm which he helped to found.

Matthew has been practicing Nonviolent Communication (NVC) for the last fifteen years. He has taught NVC in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America, and has been a globally certified trainer since 2012. He is an active member of the Dutch NVC community, and is presently training as a certification assessor. Matthew originally trained with Marshall Rosenberg and other in 2007, and is an alumni of BayNVC's Leadership Programme (2008) and Parent Peer Leadership Program (2007, 2009 (as assistant)).

Matthew's present interests involve bringing insights from applied theatre, psychoanalysis, and complex responsive processes of relating to his work supporting leaders in negotiating their most messy, complex, and paradoxical conversations. In particular he is interested in working with themes around diversity and inclusion, conflict and collaboration, and power, position, and privilege in organisations. He is a passionate improvisor and a facilitator of the Theatre of the Oppressed, and has had immense fortune to be mentored by some of the world's leading practitioners in these fields.

Matthew also has considerable experience working with children, parents, families, and educators and other professionals working with children. This forms another arm of his work with NVC.